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A review by fadingapple
A Deadly Education by Naomi Novik
dark
emotional
mysterious
tense
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Plot
- Strong character development? No
- Loveable characters? No
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
3.5
3.5/5 stars
This was definitely not what I was expecting - definitely dark academia and high fantasy, weird and mildly horror....but not what I was expecting. I think my biggest struggle was that the only characters I really liked were the side characters....El's friends were much more interesting to me than she or Orion was. And if you can consider the Scholomance itself a character, which it seems to me it had enough sentience to be considered one, it was really the coolest character of any of them.
I think I wanted more depth and instead there was a lot of surface level explanations and repetitiveness. "I'm a villain because everyone just assumes I will be one" and so on and so on over and over....it got to be a bit much. Even as El's life changed and she did develop relationships, she never really stopped thinking that way and it sort of wore me down.
Overall I love the concept and the writing wasn't bad - I think I just wanted MORE instead of more of the same. I still recommend it for lovers of dark academia though!
This was definitely not what I was expecting - definitely dark academia and high fantasy, weird and mildly horror....but not what I was expecting. I think my biggest struggle was that the only characters I really liked were the side characters....El's friends were much more interesting to me than she or Orion was. And if you can consider the Scholomance itself a character, which it seems to me it had enough sentience to be considered one, it was really the coolest character of any of them.
I think I wanted more depth and instead there was a lot of surface level explanations and repetitiveness. "I'm a villain because everyone just assumes I will be one" and so on and so on over and over....it got to be a bit much. Even as El's life changed and she did develop relationships, she never really stopped thinking that way and it sort of wore me down.
Overall I love the concept and the writing wasn't bad - I think I just wanted MORE instead of more of the same. I still recommend it for lovers of dark academia though!